


Furor

by Brandschlag



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Mythology - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:55:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29517030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brandschlag/pseuds/Brandschlag
Summary: Struck down, and met with Albus Dumbledore at King's Cross, things suddenly take a very different turn for one Harry Potter, and oh boy, are those wolves and ravens he can hear in the distance?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All right.  
> See, I, despite all my wearing masks and washing hands and keeping the distance where I could, caught the Coronavirus.  
> I've got only half a lung, so I'm under observation in the hospital.  
> I'm doing okay-ish, and truth be told, I'm rather bored. Because of that, I've been reading lotta fanfictions lately. 
> 
> And you know what annoyed me? Loki being portrayed as the God of Magic.
> 
> That's why I wrote this.

_The creature behind them jerked and moaned, and Harry and Dumbledore sat without talking for the longest time yet. The realisation of what would happen next settled gradually over Harry in the long minutes, like softly falling snow._

“I've got to go back, haven't I?” asked Harry, a thread of something cold and hollow woven into his voice.

“That is up to you,” said Dumbledore.

Surprised, Harry almost jumped on the bench. “I've got a choice?”

Dumbledore smiled at him, not in the way he usually did, but in a clandestine manner that suggested how little Harry truly knew, in a manner that suggested that all the world that Harry knew of, was just one marble amongst many, and that all it took was a big enough hammer to shatter each and everyone of them.

“Certainly,” said Dumbledore. “You told me we are in King's Cross, are we not? One would think there to be trains and such; means of... well, transportation that you could take to go back, or...”

Harry looked at the old man. “Or?”

“Well,” said Dumbledore happily. “Onwards? Is that a good way to describe it?”

"Onwards?"

Dumbledore nodded, and confirmed with a sensitive tone, "Onwards."

There was a bit of a silence where Harry felt oddly empty but his brain quickly supplied him with things to dread. All thoughts led back to one common thing, and finally he blurted out what was on his mind.

“Voldemort has got the Elder Wand.”

Dumbledore nodded, looking at Harry. “Yes he has —” and before Harry could open his mouth for a retort, the old man went on in a tone that was decidedly challenging,"— but so, and do forgive me my tone my dear boy: What?”

The old Headmaster surged to his feet, billowing robes cascading around his feet like thick and angry clouds. He was clenching his fist before his body in a gesture of impotent power. It looked like an elderly warrior, angry at himself for being too old to fight.

Harry flinched away, surprised.

Dumbledore saw it and sighed. "In the end, disregarding its myth, it's just a wand, Harry. Any name or tool of legend has been distorted into a certain greatness; though, never forget, even legends may fall. Never forget that the magic is in the person, and not the wand. Your dear friend Dobby should have taught you as much."

In the moment of silence that followed, there was a distant cacophony of howls, like that of a pack of wolves greeting the moon, leaves rustling as though wind was making them dance, and the eager bark of a raven; a drawn out moment later the sounds were replaced by the hoot and chuffing of a steam locomotive, and suddenly King's Cross' rails were empty.

Dumbledore looked left and right, frowning. "It might be just my imagination, Harry, however — Did you hear something too?"

"Yeah," said Harry, swallowing hard as he looked askance. "The trains are gone. They left just now."

Dumbledore turned back to face him, a surprised look on his face. "They have gone? Oh my!"

“But what does that mean?”

“It means,” said Dumbledore gently, though not without some sense of urgency to his speech, “that your... Oh my, this is hard to describe. It is like this: your possible destinations have changed quite thoroughly, and frankly only in dreams that are beyond the subject of my control do I have the wildest suspicions of the truth of what awaits you.”

"What? What does that mean? But... You said.... Don’t I have a choice?! "

Dumbledore shrugged inelegantly before turning back to look around as though in hopes of seeing something. "You had one, I would suppose. Had you decided to board the trains, you would have woken where your body had been struck down ... or had you decided to move on, you'd have gone to where but the wind knows the way, but now ..." Here he hummed, looking left and right, up and down and the back at Harry. "Yes! Why should it not be like that? Eternity ... why don’t you close your eyes for a moment, Harry?"

"I don't understand," said Harry, but despite feeling such, he simply closed his eyes, feeling tired and like he could do with a few hours of rest.

He felt the warm, wrinkly fingers of Dumbledore's hand pry his left hand open. Something was pushed into his palm, and then gently, the fingers closed his own around the small object.

But there came no feeling of rest; immediately as Dumbledore let go, Harry was beset by a thoroughly discomfortable feeling of vertigo that pressed in from all sides, like hooks were pulling at him to fall over, only did they not pull into the same direction.

As it happened, Harry could hear with a booming loudness Dumbledore's voice call to him, and he sounded so very sure and certain with what he said, that Harry could not but believe him right away.

"Eventually, you will understand, Harry."

And then, suddenly there were new sounds and the air smelled different from the smell of steel brake dust that lingered on the old railway station. It smelled crisp, fresh, alive and salty.

Harry opened his eyes and winced at the overpowering brightness in the one, and the absolute darkness in the other eye. It hurt to keep them both open. In fact, it felt like his head was split open.

Not being a stranger to pain, Harry tried to calm himself, but the pain did not subside; it was flowing down from where his scar was, in one sharp, thick and warm runlet past his eye. Was he alive or dead? It surely felt like he was well on the way to the latter.

After a few moments centering and accepting the pain and through it the knowledge that this must be reality, he blearily opened the one seeing eye that saw to a very bright scene of tall, wild grass and lush forests behind him, of green valleys and snow capped mountains far in the distance, of a cliff before him that seemed to climb so steep and tall that he imagined he might just fall for hours if he were to jump off of it; and the sky above, clear and blue, as if in the midst of a humid spring day.

Most certainly he was not in the Forbidden Forest anymore.

But how? Why?

It all made so little sense, and the more he thought of it, the more he felt reality dwindle from his grasp. Only clenching his left fist, feeling that strange, strangely interesting object in his palm kept him grounded.

One step forward, and Harry stopped with a lurch. He felt mighty unsteady on his bare feet, but the wind was blowing a gentle breeze through the tall grass, pulling at his robes and caressing his face.

Slowly the feeling subsided and after a few more steps and feeling the grass blades brush against his finger tips, Harry was climbing with abandon. He was eager to see the world from atop and all too happy to flee from this persisting idea of unrealness—

There was an almost black ocean, spanning as wide as Harry could see as he climbed the last few steps atop; the air was pregnant with ozone that Harry could smell and taste lingering above and behind the wet grass and salty sea air. In the distance a thunder rolled rumbling through the sky and at first Harry thought it to be the breaking claps of the waves crashing fiercely against the white stone of the cliff, but then the lightning flashed distantly, and it became clear that there was a storm riding down the scenery.

"Hail traveller —"


	2. Chapter 2

There suddenly was a man stood near the rim where lush grass bled off into distant ocean, and Harry was not quite sure whether he had just been too mesmerised by the scenery and the surreality of all things happening to see the man, or whether he had just appeared... or whether he was real altogether, the latter being a line of thought Harry did not want to pursue.

Wearing a beige linen jacket and darker pants and a bushy white beard, it was evident that the man was old, but that wasn't to say that he was frail looking, or that a stiff breeze would knock him over. Quite the opposite really, if the muscular arms and the broad shoulders were anything to go by. The man commanded a presence that made one thing very clear to Harry: the man was well-disposed towards people, but only in such a way that Harry would be well advised to stay on his good side, which strangely reminded Harry of Buckbeak. 

With these thoughts in mind, Harry cautiously went closer to the man. "Hello," he said.

As he approached the old man, Harry idly took note of the fact that he was one eyed, but no speculation could begin to ensnare his mind, for Harry's eyes were drawn to the scenery as he came to a halt next to the old man. 

"Marvellous view, is it not?" asked the old man with a gentle voice as he turned to look in the same direction. 

It was breathtaking and Harry had trouble saying anything but, "Woah."

"I am waiting for my sons to arrive," went the old man on, speaking slowly and with breaks born from heavy thought. "I did not expect anyone else to come... to such remote place. Not without Strange's aide."

It all was very strange indeed, and so Harry did not know what to say; instead he looked on, and he came to a very troubling realisation. He had never quite realised this before, but he felt insignificantly small upon seeing how wide the ocean stretched, how tall the cliff was, and how it all must pale into insignificance when compared to the world and things beyond. 

When Harry looked down at himself, everything seemed farther away than before, almost like his legs were stretched out or as though he had grown unexpectedly. He wiggled his toes in the damp grass and wondered whether his toes had always been that small and far away, and if this sort of thinking was perhaps something that was bound to happen to all those who stepped beyond the threshold of life.

After a moment of bewilderment, Harry noticed that the man next to him cast three shadows. Curious, he looked up and found that he was being watched.

"You've got three shadows," said Harry, to which the old man replied, "And you wear no footgear, lad."

A man with three shadows and the bearing of Buckbeak surely was no human, and therefore Harry did not feel too odd when he replied, "I must have lost them when I was killed."

"Killed?" murmured the old man, glancing at Harry again, specifically at where the burning cold scar was pounding away. "Perhaps! Such gaping wounds rarely leave even the most fierce warriors to survive."

Despite himself, Harry felt taunted; his anger made the area where the Killing Curse had struck him down burst with phantom pain. Harry thrust out his chin, a tremble of anger making his lips quiver. "My head may be bloody," he spat, "but I died unconquered!"

"So you say," remarked the old man, unbothered. "But was your quarrel worth it?"

The question was simple, but it made Harry's anger seem like nothing more but hot air escaping a tea kettle. "It," he said and touched to where the pain was searing away impossibly cold in his head. He felt wetness on the tip of his fingers, but the flesh he touched was numb. He looked at his fingers and saw dark red and spots of black. "It was necessary for —"

Harry swallowed back the lump and resisted the tears that he felt like spilling at the admission.

"I had to die," he repeated, voice thick and heavy. "My death made _him_ mortal."

The old man huffed a laugh. "Immortals are the most fun to kill."

"I hope my friends can finish him now," muttered Harry morosely and mostly for his own benefit. His brain was aswirl with dreadfully vague scenes of battle and death, and faces he would rather not imagine like that. "Flickwick or McGonagall... or maybe Kingsley will..." Harry went on, daring against all imagination to hope. "Yeah... Hermione and Ron aren't strong enough... to fight him."

That got the old man to turn away from the approaching storm to face Harry, one eye focused on one; where before the wrinkles crested underneath the grey eye gave it a sort of gentle look, it now looked like a wedge of smithed steel. 

"Have someone else fight your fight? What a deplorable trait in one as young as yourself!"

These words of taunt rolled from the old man's mouth far too easily, far too comfortably, but Harry rose to the challenge before his brain could supply him this information: it was bait.

Harry snorted, not one ounce of respect in his voice, and his gestures cut through the air with finality when he spoke. "I am fucking dead, if that wasn't quite clear before. D-E-A-D. No more fighting for me."

With far more speed than Harry would have thought the old man was capable of, a fist came flying and hit Harry square in the jaw, sending him flying to the ground. He groaned more out of reflex than out of feeling pain as he hit the damp grass. 

"Have a care how you speak to me," spat the old man, and stamped over.

Not one to take punishment without some cheek, Harry clenched his jaw muscles against the pain and forced out, "Sod off!"

But then the old man was on him. 

He bent over Harry, and some invisible force raised Harry's head while the old man was looking like nothing was wrong at all, groping about his golden eye patch. He removed it, at last with a barely visible wince of pain and a gasped breath of relief someone drowning would give upon coming up for much needed air.

Having expected some ungainly sight of long since healed scarred skin, or perhaps a nasty, marred piece of flesh, was Harry not quite prepared for what he truly found staring at him.

Hearing the old man mutter something, Harry was beset by a sudden bout of weakness that made all his bones feel like jelly, drained all strength from his muscles and made him sag into a heap of mushy Potter. 

The old man blinked his one eye and then looked at Harry, really, really look at Harry. 

It almost seemed as though before it had been a passing glance, but now something was gazing at him with such force that Harry could feel it upon his skin, his muscles and bones, his every cell. It felt like the universe had grown eyes and was observing him, such presence this feeling commanded.

The gaze originated not from the steely eye but from the pit of vast black that was in the second eye socket. 

There were black and bright white sparkling dots swimming in Harry's vision, and he felt oddly light, a soft touch of wind on his face, and then there was a tidal wave of pictures that sped past his attention before they could fully be grasped or comprehended in detail. 

There was no time for Harry to muster the mental fortitude to remember the rather disastrous Occlumency lessons in Snape's moldy dungeons, and in hindsight it seemed questionable at best if anyone at all could have resisted; it was over as quickly as it had begun.

"So I saw it all," said the old man, voice winded but no less firm. 

He let go of Harry who promptly fell face first into the grass. 

The old man stared down at him, strands of hair having fallen out of his queue of hair, dangling in and out of his field of vision.

"Yours was a fate not greater or worse than any man had had to bear before you, though surely it was the most taxing, most hurting one you could have endured."

Harry wanted to protest, but his mouth opened and a weak, “I know,” spilled from his lips.

“And you did well enduring it,” finished the old man. “All men who see theirs through do it well. No matter the outcome.”

“I died, that's the outcome,” repeated Harry, his voice stubborn. 

“Dead? Then how did my touch send you flying?” The old man threw the eye patch to Harry's feet and looked weary on, procuring a beige leather patch from somewhere. “Rarely a warrior survives a wound such as yours, I say, but rare occurrences are known to happen. There is nothing too strange about it.” He made a small flippant gesture at Harry. “Put it on.” 


	3. Chapter 3

Harry picked the eye patch up and felt like throwing a tantrum; but instead of throwing it back at the man, he paused to think when he felt a wondrous hot feeling from it. It was alien to the touch, faintly reminding of the first sunshine after a long and hard winter. Without thinking he placed it to where his left eye should have been, and immediately he felt a dull, throbbing pulse of warmth instead of biting cold pain. It seemed to hold onto his gaping socket without any help. Magic.

“You were lucky there was afoot some sort of prophecy.”

It was strange how these emotions that Harry had put well away the moment they had entered upon Hogwarts' ground for the final encounter finally began to return with all their might, leaving him feeling everything at once. Most prominent above all things that would have him cry, shake and sweat through a sleepless night, was impotent rage that knew no direction.

“Lucky?” Harry spat. 

“Yes! Luck is what most dead warriors were lacking; you might think it was your bravery, your boldness, and perhaps even your comradery that brought you ahead, each and every encounter, but make no mistake, you were lucky,” retorted the old man. “Much like my eldest son. Always lucky, always confusing luck with skill.”

Harry felt the idea of denying deflate the moment it came up. Sure, he thought, he knew he'd been lucky throughout most of his encounters of the dangerous sort, but he'd also hoped that there at least was a bit of skill involved. The Patronus... right? He could reproduce that!

But being told that he'd been just lucky, hearing it spoken out not by a jeering enemy, but by an unrelated stranger was different. 

Still, he could not hold back the snide remark, "One hell of a luck that Voldemort's got the Elder Wand then."

The old man gave Harry a look that spoke of contempt. "A wooden stick?"

Harry shook his head. "The most dangerous wand in existence."

At this, the old man gave what Harry would imagine was a disappointed sigh. "You mortals," muttered the old man, leaning his face into the growing breeze that was preceding the nearing storm. "When will you learn that the danger lies not in the weapon, but in whom is using it?"

Reminded of Dumbledore sharing the same sentiment just barely minutes ago, Harry could not help but feel angry, but the pulsing warmth from the eye patch began to radiate. It was flowing throughout Harry's body as he climbed to his feet, and he suddenly felt invulnerable against the cold, like not even the most harsh gales of a solid Scottish blizzard would be anything more than a slight discomfort. It was a most comforting thing to feel.

"Even so," said Harry evenly— 

Suddenly there was a tremble going through the air that, so it seemed, only Harry could feel. He jerked around just in time to see a ring of what seemed to be fluid burning fire form mid-air. Within a moment Harry stood ready, his hand fumbling for a wand that wasn't there. 

Harry cursed.  
The old man spoke with a tone that brooked no contradiction as though he was not noticing anything. "Enough!” 

Through the portal came a man in rather fashionable modern wizard garb, a red cape attached to his shoulders. He looked rather gaudy, in Harry's opinion, but Lockhart surely would have loved it, if not for the design, then for the colours. There also were rather obscure, occult symbols and fetishes attached. Most prominently, an eye pendant that hung around the man’s neck, radiating a greenish light.

The man halted midstep, one perfectly trimmed eyebrow arching terribly high. “Pardon? Who are you talking to, Odin Allfather?”

What had the man said? What was the name of that old man? 

Like back at King’s Cross Station, Harry began to hear odd things, wild sounds in the distance, like crows barking, wolves howling, leaves rustling, and the rumbling thunder and the whipping wind chanting foreign words. It seemed he was the only one hearing it too. 

He felt a shiver of most potent power on his skin, something greater than he’d ever felt before when for just a moment it seemed as though the old man was a giant staring down at him from far beyond the sky with eyes shining with wholly unfathomable might, encircled by a knot of ever twisting essence winding around and abound all existence. 

“Strange...” muttered the old man when he saw the strange man walk right past Harry without even so much of a glance. Half his cape, flowing like water through the wind went flapping right through Harry's head. 

“Yes?” asked the caped man. 

The old man covered his surprise masterfully, making quick work of finishing securing his new eye patch.“What brings you here?”

Taking a sweeping glance around, the weird caped man slightly inclined his head. “As per your request... upon your arrival in this world, I spared what I could of my attention observing the to and fro’ of the paths.”

He spoke in such a way that it was very clear he thought very little of how he was being treated to be nothing more than a guard or watchdog. But there was a lingering shadow of fear behind that arrogant facade; Harry knew how to spot it well enough. It was the look someone used to being in power had when they weren't the biggest fish in the pond anymore. It reminded of certain purebloods.

“Yes,” murmured the old man, turning back to face the storm.

Harry observed how the caped man looked at where he stood, but strangely enough, not for a single moment did his eyes linger. They just went right through as though Harry was wearing his father's invisibility … he jerked the fabric of his robe up to his eye. No, just black fabric. 

It would make sense, Dumbledore had said, and yet here he was, having more questions than ever before. It was maddening, he thought, only to stumble mentally. No, Dumbledore had said he would understand, not that it would make sense. But... understand what?

“Your sons arrived not long ago by way of the Bifröst. How do you wish for me to proceed?” 

“My sons?”

The strange caped man very nearly gave a caustic sigh at the absent minded reply, and Harry there and then decided that he didn't like the man. 

“Yes,” the man said. “Thor... and Loki.”

“My sons, yes,” the old man said after a moment, “I think that it would be best for me to meet them soon.”

The old man turned to look at the caped man, one eye open and hard. “Arrange for it, Strange.”

Without so much more than a slight incline of his head, the caped man went back into the flaming portal he had come from. Harry looked after him, spotting an almost familiar looking hallway before the flames whisked out.

“He could not see me,” said Harry quietly. “But why... You... I don't... You can see me! I don't understand anything anymore!”

The old man shook his head slightly before turning his face back into the wind, saying nothing on the matter for the longest while yet, staring only ahead. Then, when Harry's patience was about to snap, he spoke. 

“I do understand, for it is but a certain kind of sorcery,” the old man said, sounding sad. He made a vague, absently minded gesture toward Harry as he spoke. “My time is drawing near, so hasten to pay attention, Harry James Potter: this world is not yours.”

Harry’s mind snapped back to attention like a rubber band released. He made a strangled sound that, funnily enough, sounded like a very much shocked, “WHAT?”

But then his mind supplied him with the idea that perhaps if magic was real, then perhaps other worlds were real too. It seemed such an outlandish thing, something of which Harry never really entertained even the most modest idea, and yet here... he was, evidently.

“Yours is a sister-branch of Yggdrasil to this one, growing on its own, the same, yet different.” The old man took a harsh breath. “I... It... had been cast off the world tree.”

“World... tree? But why?” asked Harry.

The old man huffed as though he felt strongly on the matter, and it seemed that his reply came not without great reluctance. “Your branch... was deemed wrong. The beliefs and that terrible might that was born from it. It brought out the worst in me. I cast it away, to free the other branches from that part of me.”

Harry... frankly, did still not quite understand.

“But I am Odin, Allfather. All branches of the Yggdrasil are mine to protect and yours I failed... and at last it has been brought back to my attention. I... must accept the consequences, and prepare to rectify what I can.” 


	4. Chapter 4

Odin, Allfather turned to face Harry, and for a brief moment Harry saw hurt of the likes he could never imagine a man to bear. It was gone when he blinked, and the Allfather went to grab Harry’s tightened fist, clenching his big hands around it. He pressed down and Harry winced at the feeling of something hard digging into his palm.

“Therefore, you shall take my stead, Harry James Potter. You shall howl like a wolf, fly like a raven. You shall ride the night. You shall swear my oath, become Yggdrasil’s Host, speak the Thing.”

Harry cried out when his skin and flesh was pierced by whatever was in his fist. Warm blood began to pool from his hand just as tears began to stream down from his healthy eye, wetting once more the dried crusted blood on his cheeks.

Harry grunted, stubbornness warring with pain. “What if I don’t want to? Where is my choice?!”

The hand kept tightening its grip. “Yes!” said the Allfather. “Pondering your choices bears just as much importance as forswearing the most fickle of friends, but alas, from king to thralls, no man may escape the final fate. Not even I.”

The Allfather gave a sharp tug and Harry, crying out from pain, was pulled in close. 

“But you, Harry Potter could have chosen different in life, you could have resisted and lived in delirious happiness for that fleeting time you mortals have,” whispered the Allfather, voice thrumming with emotion, free hand pressing to Harry's heart. “You could let go, drop what you are holding onto and cease your existence. No more pain. But you won’t Harry Potter, your heart bleeds at the thought of giving up, no matter the price of fighting on. You loathe that garish knowledge, that you could have made a difference! A hero’s drive, is not?”

Wide open, Harry’s one eye was gazing down at the steady drip of blood that began to paint his bare feet with sprinkles of red. Pondering choices, the Allfather said. He counted his toes, thinking every so often how strange it felt that he was only seeing from one eye, and then from there how aberrant the most recent events had been from what he expected the next thing after dying to be. 

The silence that was filled only by the waves beating at the cliffs far below, and by the whipping winds of the thunderstorm nearly upon them was all the answer needed.

Odin, Allfather gave a nod. “Curse me for my hand in this your fate, if you wish, but swear me this oath!”

It was obscure how convenient knowledge suddenly was at the forefront of Harry’s mind as though he’d been studying it more extensively than any of the Hogwarts’ curriculum before the Ordinary Wizarding Level. 

Prominent amongst all those things he suddenly knew was a word. It was a simple word, written not in letters, but in a symbol. It rolled from his lips like the Queen’s English. 

”Óðr.”  
  
It was but a whisper, but the combined meaning of this one word held more magic than all spells known to wizard-kind. It was all the answers to all the questions, to all the options and choices Harry could think of. It filled him to the brim with a certainty and understanding of this newfound knowledge; it wasn't that suddenly things made sense, but there was a keen acceptance for all of reality blossoming somewhere deep in Harry's heart. And with that something inside himself changed, like all was strange to him; he was, as it were, outside his own individuality, detached, cut adrift. 

With the next roll of a thunderclap the Allfather’s grip round the bleeding fist was gone.

Standing under his own power and without that immovable strength gripping his hand and keeping him steady, Harry began to teeter slightly, while Odin, Allfather looked tired but happy like a man who accomplished something he had never set out to achieve, perhaps even was surprised to witness happen. 

Then it all happened very quickly— 

The Allfather nodded slightly, then held out his hand as though to grip something.

Whence the thunderstorm plowing through the sky, lightning struck the Allfather’s hand and with it a pronged and bladed spear materialised in it. Like liquid metal taking solid form out of the flash, the spear sank to the ground with a heavy thud, shockwaves of that dwarfing cosmic might rippling after.

Then, as quick as it came, the lightning was gone and the Allfather seemed all the more weak for it. Nevertheless, as the harsh heave of his chest began to subside, Odin flourished the golden rod like it was a true extension of his arms. 

  
The tip of the blade, prongs and all of the golden shaft along to the Allfather’s tight grip were pointed at Harry in one poised line. 

Now that got Harry’s attention like nothing else, though unlike with any other weapon ever pointed at him, here, Harry felt no fear. 

"Harry James Potter, I now send you back!” Odin said with authority. “In the name of my father, and his father before him, I, Odin Allfather...” Here he faltered, if only for a brief moment. “...apologise for my failure and that you must take my stead. Take my boon that you might be filled with fulness of your new duties, and do better than I did.”

With a grunt of exertion, the Allfather ripped the spear into the sky. As it stabbed into the above, a roaring noise drowned out all the other sounds. Momentarily after, a giant beam of light shot from the sky. It came down like a waterfall, a massive current to be sure, wholly made of light that shimmered in all the colours of the most beautiful rainbow Harry could imagine.

Harry craned his neck up and left and right, stunned. Everything seemed dark when compared to the brilliance in front of him. 

He turned back to the Allfather only to find himself face to face, not a step between them. Purely based instinct he would have flinched away, if not for the certainty that he could now stand his ground.

“Walk like a ghost, _Valfather_ ,” said the Allfather, lips curving into a weak smile. 

He yipped a howl and with the spear in both hands he gave Harry a push and let go.

“Wha —” Harry’s voice was cut off by the roar he stumbled into, and the last thing he saw was a happy smile on Odin, Allfather’s face when he turned around and walked away like a man freed. 

Then there only was light.


	5. Chapter 5

At Hogwarts, there first came a din, a roar that rend the night. 

It could not be considered to be a real warning, as immediately after, it was followed by a humongous column of light appearing from beyond the firmament, connecting instantly with the ground and bathing the Forbidden Forest in more colours than it had ever before borne witness to. 

It looked like a giant prism was sat atop the column, splitting its light as much as it was blinding, and any animal yet still around and not scared away from the battle at Hogwarts scattered.

And if there ever was an event like a cosmic index finger pointing at something with utmost insistency, then this was it. Every witch and wizard present at the historic battle taking place afoot Hogwarts saw it, but what it meant, eluded yet all those alive.

However certain residents of Hogwarts were drawn to it, for the first time in their ethereal existence leaving the halls they’ve been haunting. 

* * *

A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to Harry that reasonably speaking perhaps this was how death was like, all encompassed by warmth and light, a never ending gentle embrace in which getting lost was as simple as breathing in and out.

It felt more real than what before he encountered before coming upon Dumbledore at King’s Cross. 

Did that make any sense at all? 

It was more real, yet felt more like being dead. 

Would anyone understand his thoughts? He didn’t think so. He didn’t understand them either.

Then there suddenly was something other than light, and immediately a sense of dejavu washed over him. Harry recognised the feeling almost immediately; it was ... like when he woke from deep slumber, and only when his glasses were placed on his nose could he see the world properly. Then the light was gone, and instead of unformed nothingness, Harry wass thrust upon the damp earth of the Forbidden Forest. 

Something heavy collided with the earth behind him, first a thud, then another. 

“I am back,” Harry whispered, odd words spilling around him like echoes never spoken, like scarce the world could believe that he indeed was back, and indeed the whole mess seemed unbelievable.

Harry looked at his hands and found that both were empty; the left a mess of drying blood but otherwise as healthy as his right hand. There was something underneath the drying blood, however there were other things on his mind.

Like a man who had slept for so long his legs had forgotten how to stand, let alone walk, Harry staggered before falling to his knees. He was breathing harshly while his one eye on autopilot went to categorize his surroundings. 

He saw everything at once, but it was as though not just his legs were a bit drunken on sleep. It took a moment, longer than Harry was comfortable with to filter out the unnecessary information.

The first thing that seemed of importance was that the Allfather’s spear was behind him. 

The second was that he was in the clearing he had offered his life up to Voldemort; his eye went from where he’d followed the two Death Eaters into the clearing to where he stood when he’d been struck down ... and there he saw something, a heap of fur, and below it bloodied limbs sticking out at odd angles.

Spurred by the ill omen, Harry griped for the spear. He hoisted himself up, making his way over as fast as he could, the spear used to keep upright. 

It only took a few more steps for Harry to know what the heap of fur was, and what the wetness seeping the earth around it meant, and he knew it just as surely as he knew what he was going to do next.

“Hagrid,” he said, repeating it over and over until he could reach the fur coat with his hand. He expected there were tears to be spilled, felt like crying out when the physical touch confirmed this to be reality and not just a wild, mad hallucination. But nothing happened still. He was detached. Cut adrift. 

Harry drew his bloody hand back from the dead body, and with it, a ghostly figure rose from the fur, first small, but growing until it stood thrice as tall as Harry.

“You fought them after they killed me.” 

“s’All right,” said Hagrid’s deep voice. “Yeh kno’ I couldn’t jus’ sit there ‘n watch ‘em kill someone I felt wos like me son, could I?”

Gripping his spear tight, Harry looked up from the bloody mess. Hagrid beamed at him.

“Yer lookin’ good,” said the spirit, all hearty and good natured, waving negligently at his dead body, and the three others squashed beneath it. “That’s fine. I wos old anyways. But yer lookin’ a wee bit undergeared there, Harry — Why don’t yeh take me moleskin coat? Ol’ me don’t have use for it anymore, eh?”

“Your coat?” asked Harry faintly, glancing over.

It looked a wee bit too big, but somehow he just knew that that wouldn’t be much of an issue. 

“Sure thing,” agreed Hagrid cheerily, patting down at the wavering form of the coat he was wearing. “It’s got more secret pockets than ol’ Hogwarts got secret pass’ges, yeh kno’?”

From one such a secret pocket Hagrid procured his crossbow. He pretended not to watch Harry as he checked it over, loaded it and, and then hefted it to his shoulder like a man ready for a hunt.

Meanwhile Harry stared at the heap of bodies before him. After a little consideration he nudged the butt of his spear at the fur and watched blankly how it rose off Hagrid’s dead body as though it was utterly pervious to physical touch. However it did so, Harry felt it settle around his shoulders, sliding onto his frame and resizing without any further bidding.

Hagrid beamed at him, giving a thumbs up. “Look’s good on yeh,” he said approvingly, apparently completely unbothered by how his own lifeblood was painting the patchwork of small-cut furs a dark, wet red.

There came sounds from beyond the Forbidden Forest, from Hogwarts.

Harry’s eye snapped up, gripping his spear at the... odd things he heard underlying those bangs, and clangs, the cracks and the screams.

Hagrid turned to look and grinned. “Aye,” he said, “looks like it’s time, yeh reckon?”

“You are eager,” remarked Harry without inflection. 

He was already walking, faster than before, thumping the spear to the ground rather than leaning onto it. He felt weightless, a thrum of power echoing with each thud of the spear, echoes that spilled into the air and gave presence to the foreboding feeling of war. 

“Sure am,” said Hagrid, striding along. “Yeh need good huntsmen, an’ I pride meself ta never not getting the shot in, ‘arry.”

The edge of the Forbidden Forest came into view, and with it there suddenly was a great tumult of something big, and nimble moving. It had many legs, but the rest of it was hidden by the surrounding undergrowth, yet however the clacking and the seething sounds it made as they approached were telltale signs of something very familiar.

“Steady,” said Hagrid, and when Harry looked at the wispy form next to him, he saw that the giant crossbow was at the ready, bolt cocked and Hagrid’s index finger was about to press on the hammer.

With a dull whiplash the leathery tendon loosened and a ghostly bolt went. In the blink of an eye it pierced the being with a wet sound and horrible shrieking, and dragged it forth, out of the Forbidden Forest and onto the battlefield.

“Aragog’s spawn,” muttered Hagrid, not one ounce of sadness in his voice. “Dumb, brute beast. It would’a attacked anyone. Whatta shame, but what’s done is done.”

After hoisting back up his crossbow, Hagrid looked at Harry and winked at him. “Told yeh! Yeh take care now ‘arry, not a lot of ’em left! An’ while we’re at it: first blood’s mine!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll update the rest later, I feel rather terrible today.

Forming the vanguard, Hagrid laughed as he left for the battlefield, a deep and guttural sound that sent a clutter of wings flying from the crowns of the trees above. 

It felt surreal still and all the more, the more happened, but there was no delaying and just a few more steps, and Harry was out of the Forbidden Forest — 

Terrible noise split the approaching dawn, and all the people on the battlefield stayed clear of the flailing beast and it's wild, thrashing limbs. However even without the beast, madness was afield, and the sounds of war played their mad tune.

The battle had spilled from inside Hogwarts out onto the wide open of its grounds. There were a thousand and more people, pelting in small groups against each other, almost indistinguishable on the first look.

There were giants chasing after Hagrid's brother who was limping and bloodied and looking utterly defeated, snot and tears mixing with red that stained his shabby clothings in more than one spot. They seemed unstoppable forces, each step of their humongous bodies quaking the earth, and nothing standing in their ways mattered, and was found trampled flat. 

There were witches and wizards of all ages, colours and sizes, pointy hats, comfy robes and all, with sheer inevitable belligerence on their faces as they shielded against and shot the most destructive spells they knew, fighting until they dropped dead, or climbed about their fallen foes with the vigor of victory driving them on.

There were rags wearing houselves swarming between witches and wizards, werewolves and other creatures, hacking and stabbing with cutlery and other makeshift weapons, eager bred malice twisting their leathery faces into gleeful masks of horror, chasing after those attacking their house of service. 

And in between them all, almost like dancers giving the greatest performance of their lives on a stage where the spotlight had broken down, were Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Horace Slughorn, twisting and weaving, ducking and lunging at a bloodied, impatient Voldemort. 

It was a fight of tooth and nail, neither party giving an inch: when Voldemort attacked, Minerva McGonagall transfigured all sorts of matter into improvised barriers, and Horace Slughorn shielded no less elegantly than his colleague. Kingsley Shacklebolt meanwhile maintained their distance, keeping the approaching foe at bay.

It was an artful display of magic, beautifully done even, to be sure, but nonetheless nothing but a temporary impasse, for Voldemort was nothing if not made of endurance, and all of his fended off attacks were resounding with deep gonglike strokes, getting louder and louder with each and every spell. It seemed only a matter of time until the scales would tip in his favor.

Harry saw it all at once, and cared little for it, however what managed to draw the focus of his attention were not those alive, in a struggle for survival, but those slain. 

These corpses here.

And these corpses there.

Harry saw them all, highlighted above and between all those alive who were moving like dark shades between those slain. He knew all their names, all their faces. Faintly, he thought, he could even hear their voices. 

A whiplash sounded from the left of him, and not a heartbeat later the thrashing monster spider went limp. Its long, hairy legs dragged close to the body in slow motions, then it went still. 

When Harry turned to look, Hagrid audibly patted his crossbow before throwing it back up his shoulder. Their gazes met briefly, and there was something of a piercing glint in Hagrid’s eyes.

“No draggin’ things out. It’s cruel.”

“Yes,” said Harry while returning to look at the battlefield. “It is cruel.”

Harry’s one eye felt heavy, like it was seeing too much at once, and it took some moments to discern what was immediate reality, and what stemmed from a vision not his own, so far-reaching, that the infinite universe, the inconceivable nature of all things that were, was unveiled to be something entirely small.

Again, knowledge filled him, and with a hoarse howl, Harry jabbed his spear into the sky above.

Thunder clapped and a bolt of lighting struck out of the firmament, into the gilden spear.

The crackling fulmination licked at the tree tops, burnt whatever it could touch into husks of cinder, thousands of its arms touching upon the earth around Harry, surging into anything that offered it no resistance at all.

It stayed connected, however, coiling and lunging. 

From the spear’s blade a soft hue of green rose along the path of lightning, pulsing as though with a heartbeat driving it, into the sky where it bled out wholly without leaving a visible trace. 

An acute sense of feeling eyes on him turned Harry away from the spiel. He looked around and saw Minerva McGonagall was staring at him, hair clinging to her sweaty face, like someone seeing a ghost — that was to say, she looked ghostly pale and properly shocked, and not angry as she usually did when some ghost interrupted her lessons.

She was unfazed when a jet of most feared green light went a hair’s breadth past her shoulder, and seemed to completely forget her part in the battle fought against Voldemort, her compatriots suddenly hard pressed to defend against the onslaught of magic.

Next to Harry, Hagrid shifted his crossbow, readying himself to shoot at something approaching the two of them. In the blink of an eye Hagrid shot, hit the mark, and then leaned to the side a bit, sticking his head through the trunk of a tree, curiously gandering at where the bolt went.

Observing this caused Minerva McGonagall’s face to take on a droopy look. She ground her jaw visibly for a brief moment before she turned, shouting inaudible words at the battle that was moving away from her and then dashed off like a scalded cat.

* * *

At the entrance of Hogwarts, the base of the partisan effort was pushed back hard, all their progress to broaden the defences smashed by a horde of chasing giants. 

There under the awning, heels to steps and some hidden behind the parapet walls, stood a motley crew of worse for wear senior students, parents and citizens of Hogsmeade and one haggard, tired looking Filius Flitwick, defending as best they could, given the situation and the shoot-and-scoot tactics of their attackers.

Amidst this the Bloody Baron and Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington came afloat through from yonder the grounds, startling everyone except the short professor. Filius Flitwick seemed like he was running on fumes, but what breath he was lacking, he made up for with belligerence.

"What?" he barked. "Don't tell me it's those giants again! We can’t repel those oversized brutes indefinitely!" 

But neither the Bloody Baron nor the Nearly Headless Nick did look at him. Their eyes were drawn to the column of light in the distance, the Baron’s periwig askew, mad grin showing rotten teeth while Sir Nicholas’ was standing on his tiptoes (while still hovering mid-air), head occasionally threatening to flap off his neck.

"If you want to live, get inside," the Baron rumbled, barely audible.

Filius Flitwick drew himself up in an attempt to give an air of authority, but the whispery, almost bloodthirsty voice of Sir Nicholas made him halt. Flitwick turned to him, wand raised slightly from out of his black robes.

“Get inside!” Sir Nicholas whispered, mad urgency driving his tone. “Only the threshold will keep you safe!”

From the skirmish near the rim of the Forbidden Forest suddenly Minerva McGonagall came running, faster than anyone thought a woman of her age was able to run. With her hair being a mess, skirt ruffled up and held in white-knuckled fists, she looked to be in a frenzy of panic.

“Filius!” she cried as she spotted him amidst students and ghosts, flicking her wand in hectic motions at the students lingering in a circle around Filius Flitwick. 

Most of them deflected the spells, but some were pushed toward the school’s large entrance doors. 

Looking up to her frantic face, Filius Flitwick promptly used the pointy end of his wand to poke a few student butts that stood in the way of his line of sight. He took a few short steps. 

“What?” he squealed.

“Sidhe! Merlin help us! Students, get inside! Away with you ghosts! Don’t you come any closer!” Minerva McGonagall pointed her wand at the statues defending the last line around the school. “Bring all the students inside! Barricade the gates and let nobody enter or leave!”

“Students! You heard your Headmistress!” shouted Filius Flitwick, a swish of his robes freeing his raised wand. 

Holding something ragged and mildewed tucked underneath his arm, one Neville Longbottom pushed against and through the students being herded to the doors.

Filius Flitwick took a somewhat menacing step forward. “And you too, Mr. Longbottom!”

Neville ignored him. “I must do something. I promised it to Harry! B-before —” 

“This is a school!” squeaked Flitwick, angrily. “It is a teacher’s duty to protect their students —” 

Surprisingly, Neville cut across him, voice hot and angry. “Fat good it did Harry, hm?”

Flitwick looked as though smacked. He shook himself and said, “Rest assured, Mr. Longbottom, I’ll gladly tilt heaven and earth before one more of my students dies before me!”

Despite the tremble in the arm holding his wand, Neville stood his ground. “I’ll go out there!” he said. “Hermione, Ron, Fred and George, and my Grandmother too! They are all out there! Why should I —”

“This is not the time for discussions!” snapped McGonagall.

But before either of the adults could say anymore, Neville’s face grew hard. He wiped his tears and with a mad push through the ranks of the adults, he dashed off.

Snarling, Flitwick jabbed his wand towards the wooden doors which banged open; thereafter he sent hexes after the more (vocally) reluctant students hiding behind the stone parapet walls. He was helped by the remaining adults, some very eager to seek more solid cover.

“The thickheadedness of Longbottoms!” lamented McGonagall; a brief pause later she seemed to remember her cause, shifting from foot to foot as she stared blankly at her colleague. “Sidhe! Filius!”

Filius Flitwick stared at her. "You realise, of course, that this is past all belief?"

“You saw Voldemort... what he showed us... but then, standing in the Forbidden Forest I saw Potter, and Hagrid!” Minerva McGonagall whispered, looking her colleague in the eyes with urgency. “Sidhe, Filius! I swear it on my wand!”

"Potter and Hagrid?" repeated the squeaky voice of Flitwick as the short professor pointed his wand at the closing doors of Hogwarts. "... Protego horribilis — Are we sure what we saw was not yet another ploy to weaken our morale?”

“I saw them as true as I am standing here, Filius!” 

Filius Flitwick hedged. “Perhaps they escaped?” 

“Aside from that he was floating, Hagrid’s head went through the trunk of a tree after he shot a snake with an insubstantial bolt,” said Minerva McGonagall soberly, looking around at the two remaining adult witches standing with them. 

“Oh my, poor Hagrid. Yes, I see,” Flitwick said sadly. “And about Potter then?”

“Harry Potter?” asked one of the witches. “What about Potter? Is he alive then?”

Minerva McGonagall could not prevent the shudder that wrecked through her. She looked at the witch and shook her head. “Mrs. Flume, I’m afraid —” 

All of a sudden all sounds from this war filled night were swallowed up by a silence that came like a blanket over the world when the sky cracked open as though a wedge of green lightning was driven through it. 

It stayed like that, frozen and disgustingly similar to the garish sheen of the Killing Curse — 

Almost all of the fighting stopped dead as soon as the aurora bathed the earth green; long drawn out cracking and groaning of woods coming from deep in the Forbidden Forest, and moans and huffs, racked with pain filled the silence that followed. 

Nothing happened at first, almost stirring alive again the raging beast of war, but then, all the dead of the battle rose as spectres, like small wisps of candle light seen through only a long, long and dark hallway, dancing like flames atop the candle wax.

They flocked together, hundreds, perhaps even a thousand and more; a frenzy-like humming began to fill the air, like bees in a glass being shaken until they were violently abuzz. 

Steadily the spectres went, and most people alive stood frozen in shock and horror.

Following that concourse, the Bloody Baron, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, and from far behind them, through the closed doors of Hogwarts the Fat Friar, leading the flock of the remaining Hogwarts' ghosts, made their way as though led by the tune of the Pied Piper.

* * *

While hundreds of people stood with their eyes following a procession of surreal nature, the battle between the two parties of Kingsley and Slughorn versus Voldemort was nearing its climax.

“You will regret this insurrection!” spat Voldemort, scudding through a volley of spells. 

Slughorn wobbled through a zigzag path, panting heavily. He crossed paths with Kingsley and on a silent agreement they turned, firing a brutal onslaught of spells at the chasing dark wizard. They did not let off, steady attacks eating away at Voldemort and keeping him busy, until the last spell, deflected like all the others, exploded with a loud clang. 

Impossibly dark fog that ate away at whatever it touched pervaded the air where Voldemort stood. 

There was a screech and suddenly Voldemort howled in cold hatred, and the fog buckled and shuddered at his rage. 

“The only thing I regret is that you have disappointed the faith I once had placed in you Tom,” rebuked Horace Slughorn pale-faced and sweaty, a dismal grin pulling at his mouth.

Using this short moment of reprieve, Horace Slughorn looked about, assessing the situation surrounding them with alertness that belied his exhaustion.

There were spectres; not ghosts, but spectral revenants climbing from the bodies of the dead like flickering lights that only took form once fully freed from their mortal remains. 

But there was more: 

Tendrils of that faint, dead light seemed ascending from below the earth, rising into vague shapes of people long forgotten.

And suddenly, like on a silent command, each and every one of them set to walk, all headed into the same direction. Their feet never touched the ground, instead with each step they dipped in and out of view like a flickering light.

What remained of Horace Slughorn’s grin faded at the sight. 

Voldemort hissed as he worked on freeing himself, and for Slughorn that was the cue to return his attention to the fight at hand. 

“Shacklebolt? M’boy are you still with me?” wheezed Slughorn while wiping his face off sweat with the hem of his dirtied and stained emerald-green silk pyjamas. 

Within moments the spectres were close enough to discern faces; each step brightened their light, grew them more solid until wispy, wavery forms were almost real people, real familiar people. 

“What in the name of...” breathed Kingsley Shacklebolt, shaken to the bone. “We better regroup, Professor!”

“I —” began Horace Slughorn, but words failed him into a shuddering breath.

There was furious Poppy Pomfrey marching next to a dragon made entirely from colourful motes of fireworks, crackling and sparkling, and on it’s back was riding one of the twin Weasleys, a wild grin stretching his freckled face like he was having the greatest of all times. Behind them came marching a withdrawn looking Severus Snape, duckbilled Nymphadora Tonks, and her husband, Remus Lupin whose face was wearing wolfish features like a mask, and dozens more; each and everyone Slughorn knew as well as any teacher knew their students.

“Professor!” urged Shacklebolt.

Finally, Slughorn roused. “Good grief, yes! Yes! Regroup!” 

Being a seasoned Auror, Shacklebolt ignored the nervous splutter and only noted the spoken agreement; a gust of fire was slung at the remaining dark fog, and then Kingsley clasped the silken fabric of Slughorn’s pyjamas tight, and apparated them away.


End file.
